Description

Timothy Sprigge was one of the leading exponents of philosophical idealism in the last fifty years. His scholarly work in the history of modern philosophy focused on Baruch Spinoza, William James, Josiah Royce, George Santayana, F. H. Bradley, Arthur Schopenhauer, Edmund Husserl, and Alfred North Whitehead: this eventually led to the construction of his own original system of metaphysics he called 'panpsychistic absolute idealism'. Idealism, long unfashionable, has been coming back into favour, and Sprigge's work has found a new readership. This selection of his finest essays ranges widely over metaphysics, ethics, and the history of philosophy: all the themes that he discusses are drawn together in his unique philosophical system, based upon his original theory of the nature of consciousness.show more

About T. L. S. Sprigge

Timothy L. S. Sprigge (1932-2007) was Professor of Logic and Metaphysics in the University of Edinburgh. He received his PhD from the University of Cambridge working under R. T. H. Redpath and, later, A. J. Ayer. Professor Sprigge held positions teaching philosophy at University College London, Sussex University and, as a visiting professor, at the University of Cincinnati in Ohio. He was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and President of the Aristotelian
Society.

Leemon B. McHenry is Lecturer in Philosophy at California State University, Northridge. In 2007, he co-edited with Pierfrancesco Basile a Festschrift honouring T. L. S. Sprigge, Consciousness, Reality, and Value: Essays in Honour of T. L. S. Sprigge (Frankfurt: Ontos Verlag, 2007). McHenry has taught philosophy at the University of Edinburgh, Old Dominion University, Davidson College, Central Michigan University, and held research positions at the Johns Hopkins University, UCLA, and
the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities at the University of Edinburgh. He became literary executor to T. L. S. Sprigge in 2007.show more

Table of contents

Introduction ; PART I: CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE METAPHYSICS OF EXPERIENCE ; 1. Orientations ; 2. What I Believe ; 3. The Privacy of Experience ; 4. Final Causes ; 5. The Importance of Subjectivity: An Inaugural Lecture ; 6. Is Consciousness Mysterious? ; 7. Consciousness ; 8. The Distinctiveness of American Philosophy ; 9. The World of Description and the World of Acquaintance ; PART II: THE METAPHYSICS OF TIME AND THE ABSOLUTE ; 10. The Unreality of Time ; 11. Ideal Immortality ; 12. Bradley and Russell on Relations ; 13. The Self and Its World in Bradley and Husserl ; 14. Absolute Idealism ; 15. Pantheism ; PART III: ETHICS, ANIMAL RIGHTS, AND THE ENVIRONMENT ; 16. The Greatest Happiness Principle ; 17. Is the Esse of Intrinsic Value Percipi? Pleasure, Pain and Value ; 18. Metaphysics, Physicalism and Animal Rights ; 19. Vivisection, Morals and Medicine: Commentary From an Anti-Vivisectionist Philosopher ; 20. Non-Human Rights: An Idealist Perspective ; 21. Are There Intrinsic Values in Nature ; 22. An Idealist's Prayer for the World ; Acknowledgements ; Selected Bibliography of T. L. S. Sprigge ; Indexshow more

Review quote

with an oeuvre consisting of several large monographs and a variety of widely scattered articles, up to this point in time there has been no one source to which readers might go in order to form a broad picture of his contribution to the discipline. Bringing together a selection of his best papers and drawing on all of the main areas in which he was active, this volume makes good that gap, and stands both as a valuable summary of and fitting tribute to his work. * William J. Mander, Journal of Consciousness Studies * Almost all the papers are readable with enjoyment ... * Stephen R.L. Clark * There is a great deal to be learned from this book. * James W. Allard, Philosophical Quarterly * a judicious sampling of Sprigges philosophy and will be of interest to anyone concerned with the metaphysics of experience, time, idealism, and ethics. * Glenn Tiller, Philosophy in Review * rich and stimulating volume, nicely edited by one of his former students and literary executor, Leemon McHenry All in all, one could not have hoped for a better introduction to the philosophy of one of the greatest idealist thinkers in the second half of the twentieth-century. * Pierfrancesco Basile, Mind * These essays cover the main topics with which Sprigge was most concerned: the nature of consciousness, idealist metaphysics (his own as well as general surveys of the doctrine) and the implications of his metaphysics for ethics (most especially with regard to the treatment of animals and the question of whether nature possesses intrinsic moral value). On each of these topics Sprigge had interesting and novel things to say, always in admirably clear prose even when
the ideas were difficult and intrinsically obscure or complex... The book is a delight to read and much can be learned from it. * William Seager, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews * [a] fine collection of essays * Pierfrancesco Basile, Times Literary Supplement *show more

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